Nigeria Seven Energy to produce gas next year

By Agnieszka Flak

CAPE TOWN (Reuters) - Nigeria's Seven Energy expects to start production from its Uquo gas field by the middle of next year, with some 200 million cubic feet expected a day, its head said on Tuesday.

Chief Executive Scott Aitken said the company, Nigeria's largest privately-owned gas development firm, expects to feed the country's fast growing demand for gas, which he said would grow fivefold over the next decade to 10 billion cubic feet per day.

"We are planning to have the Uquo field in production by the middle of 2010... we are looking at 200 million cubic feet per day," he told Reuters on the sidelines of an African oil conference in Cape Town.

Seven Energy has a 45 percent stake in the Uquo field, with the rest owned by Frontier Oil Ltd.

Aitken said the company is about to conclude two acquisitions, one still to be finalised this year and the other in the first quarter of 2010.

"They're both about half a tcf (trillion cubic feet) in reserves ... we are negotiating with a number of local and international companies to buy the gas, but it may take a few years to bring (the fields) into production," he said.

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Aitken said the company had reprioritised its portfolio and postponed the development of some of its assets.